Getting in Somebody’s Arms

I have never admitted this, but each night as I fall asleep I pretend I’m in somebody’s arms.

It’s really quite lovely. It gives me all of the comfort and security of being able to fall asleep with someone without having to worry about what to do with an inevitable squished arm.

Lately I have been getting out of this habit, for two reasons. While I would love to claim that this is a proactive decision of embracing singledom, the much larger reason isn’t as celebratory. I have run out of people to fantasize about.

This is a dryspell at its worst, since it affects more than just my dating life. When I climb into bed, for either the falling-asleep-in-someone’s-arms pretending or the more aerobic kind, it is quite a mood killer to lie there for 10 minutes trying to find a candidate, any candidate at all, to think about. It has finally reached the point where I fall asleep before I can think of anyone.

Now, I have gone periods in my life without anyone to be excited about, but this one is epic. Even my fallbacks have petered out. Without a specific person, or the ability to simply make someone up, in desperate situations I will take one of my favorite friends and imagine that they have an older brother into bioremediation who plays guitar. That only works so many times before I have to take someone that I passed on the street and imagine them to have a fascinating personality and compatible lifestyle, quite a lot of work to just get imaginary arms. In this bout, after my ultra-last-absolutely final option wore out (I mean really, you can only dip into the Ed Norton piggy bank so many times), I find myself sleeping alone in every possible interpretation of the word.

But perhaps not…I once heard that were it possible to make a couch disappear instantly, you could still see the outline of the couch for a moment from all the microorganisms suddenly left hanging in midair. What a way to think of my bed! I am not alone, I am COVERED with potential soulmates! Certainly some of these microorganisms have arms, or at least flagella. There is no possible way I could fall asleep without arms all over me! Alone? Pshh! I’m sleeping in an ecosystem, baby!

Yup. That’s how single I am right now. My last resort of comfort is, “Well, at least I’ve got my microorganisms.”